


Make Do

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bad Pornography Titles, Bucky is Pining Too, Everything After is Ignore Though Lol, Insecure Tony, It Might Seem One Sided but Read Between Bucky's Lines, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pining Tony, Pornography, dumbass, teammates, there was only one bed!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26905225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: When a mission goes south, Tony ends up having to spend the night alone with Barnes in a cheap hotel. Tony believes hiding his budding attraction for the ex-assassin will be easy, but the universe conspires against him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 16
Kudos: 196





	Make Do

Two in the morning finds Tony shivering outside a 3 star hotel along an empty thirty-mile stretch in northern New York. As he gets older, he finds that the cold affects him more—as if everything about getting older didn’t already suck. Tucking his stiff fingers beneath his arms, he shifts up onto his toes and then back to his heels a few times to generate heat. He looks around the parking lot (completely empty except for one of his more inconspicuous cars) and wonders for the tenth time what the hell is taking Bucky so long. 

At the thought of his fellow teammate, the man emerges from the sliding doors at the front of the hotel. The sight of Bucky has the same effect on Tony as missing a step on the stairs: his heart gives an extra loud thump and his stomach clenches. Who could blame him? Barnes is handsome in a way that’s painful, his face symmetrical and brooding, mouth full and downturned, figure slimmer than it was during his assassin days but no less strong. He exudes an aura that reminds Tony of cigarette smoke, the itch of the craving—the knowledge that it’s no fucking good for you. 

“Everything okay in there?” Tony asks. 

“Fine. They wanted my ID to match the credit card though, so I had to pay.” 

Tony winces. “I’ll pay you back and more.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky mutters while Tony pops the trunk of his car. He slings both of their bookbags over his buff shoulders in one smooth motion making Tony feel like some sort of teenage girl in a romcom with Bucky coming up along next to him in khakis and a sweater asking,  _ may I carry your books? _ “Just put your hood up and try not to attract attention.” 

“Not my first rodeo,” Tony murmurs. 

Despite the validity of his words, he can’t help but feel like the ground beneath him is shifting sand, liable to give out at any moment. This isn’t the first mission he’s ever been on with the (ex) Winter Soldier, but this will be the first that they have had to spend a long time in close contact. When the mission had gone south three hours ago, the group of six—Tony, Bucky, Steve, Nat, Sam, and Clint—had all had to split and scatter to avoid being tailed. 

Tony had no doubt that Steve would have moved mountains to be the one trapped with his best pal in a hotel room waiting for the dust to settle, but Bucky had grabbed Tony by the collar of his shirt as soon as he retracted the suit and dragged him towards Tony’s car. A part of him takes pleasure in imagining how Cap must be bugging out with Bucky in Tony’s clutches, but surely Steve knows that Tony and Bucky have buried the hatchet. 

Surely Bucky knows that too, even if Tony has never explicitly stated it. 

The hotel is quiet and giving off major Kubrik vibes. The young man behind the desk is watching an episode of Breaking Bad on his phone; he doesn’t bother glancing up when Bucky and Tony slip past him to the elevators.

When Bucky opens the door to their hotel room, there is only one bed. 

“Oh, I know how this ends,” Tony mutters.

“What?” Bucky asks, dropping their bags on a yellow stuffed armchair in the corner of the room. 

“Just—rambling to myself. Going senile,” Tony says. 

The room isn’t a bad size for a 3 star. The decor is dated and faded: a queen-sized bed, a dresser with a TV standing precariously on top, a desk in the corner with a pad of paper and pen. The bathroom is clean to the visible eye at least, though a portion of the vanity has been chipped away and lost. 

There’s a coffee pot and complimentary coffee, so. Things could be worse. 

Unsure about how he’s going to pass an unknown amount of time with Mr. Strong and Silent who has spent the last few minutes staring out the window at the parking lot of the hotel, the problem is thankfully solved when Bucky announces: “I’m going to shower.” 

“Fabulous idea,” says Tony, seeing a naked, dripping wet Barnes in his mind’s eye. They’ve worked out enough in the same room for Tony to be pretty confident in his brain’s imagination, though there are some important bits that are still a little pixelated, accounting for unknowns. “I’ll just—see if the television actually works.” 

With speed that nearly gets him injured, Tony strips himself and dresses in the comfortable clothes packed in his go-bag, leaving the expensive undersuit resting over the back of the chair by the desk. Spending all of his time in a temperature-controlled suit performing aerial support instead of hand-to-hand combat, he isn’t nearly as sweaty or disheveled as Barnes. 

The bed is...uncomfortable at best, but at least the sheets are clean (he folds them back to check). Sitting gingerly with his back against the headboard, he thinks about investing in a hotel chain while flipping through channels on the television. The TV is the newest part of the entire room, and the cable has an index of channels so that he can peruse in silence, listening to the water pounding against ceramic, the beat unsteady because Barnes’s body is in the way. Barnes as he scrubs himself with probably unnecessary perfunct. 

He arrives at the highest channels and barks a laugh. Do people still pay for pornography in hotel rooms? Do people still pay for pornography at  _ all _ ? Jesus. Then again, it’s been years since Tony needed secondary assistance (years since he’s featured in some of the more adult videos, speaking of), so he’s probably not the expert he once was. 

The titles clearly haven’t improved with time, he thinks to himself while he skims through. Some of the pun-filled titles make him cringe, but a few make him give out snorts: the _ DaVinci Load _ ? That one is worth more than just a snort. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t hear the sound of the shower as it shuts off. Tony barely has time to turn the television off when he hears the doorknob twist and there stands Barnes, hair wet and dripping, clothes clean but sticking to the moisture of his body. 

“What’s so funny?” Bucky asks. His face is in a neutral expression—that is, he looks bored and solemn instead of murderous. Gray eyes move across Tony from head to toe where he’s sitting reclined on the bed, and Tony fights not to swallow or shift under that penetrating gaze. 

“You know me. Just finding the humor in every situation,” says Tony. He drops the remote on the bed. “Nothing much to watch.” 

“You mind if I look?”

“Have at ‘em.” 

Except that of course when Bucky turns the television on, the channel index is still where Tony left it, currently centered over  _ Night of the Giving Head _ which might actually be worth checking out. Tony works hard to keep his own expression neutral, eyes straining to see Barnes’s expression out of the corner of his eye. His face is still neutral, but his brows have lowered as he squints at the screen, reading the titles. 

“Probably not the kind of entertainment you’re looking for,” Tony adds. 

“Steve has shown me this one—”  _ That  _ has Tony’s eyes growing wide as saucers, eyes zeroing in on the screen to see exactly what porno saintly Steve Rogers has shown to his bff. “Tarantino, right? Pulp Fiction.” 

“Barnes, no—!”

The screen is filled with an Uma Thurman look-alike, hair dark and cropped beneath the chin. She’s on her hands and knees on a well-dimmed dancefloor being pounded by a man who looks very, very little like John Travolta but who is certainly greasy enough to fit the role. It doesn’t look like there is much twisting involved. Just plenty of thrusting. 

“What the hell,” Bucky says. “This is...not the movie I remember—” 

“This is  _ Pulp Friction _ , Barnes, it’s a bad porn spoof, just change the channel for God’s sake—” 

“I—can’t?” Barnes mashes his thumb at either of the buttons to change the channel, but Mia continues to be shown quite the night out on the town by Vincent behind her, one of his hands grasping at her short dark hair to pull her back into a lovely arch. The sounds that have filled the room are the obscene wet squelches and screaming moans of fake-fucking. “The channel won’t change.” 

“Give it here,” Tony says, fumbling to catch when Barnes throws the remote. Sure enough, the buttons aren’t working. When he goes back to the index of channels, he sees that by clicking on the movie, Bucky has purchased it—just another thing Tony will have to reimburse him for, and at $19.99  _ Pulp Friction _ is ridiculously overpriced—and until the movie has ended, another channel can’t be selected. “It looks like we’re stuck with this stunning piece of cinematography. We’ll just shut it off.” 

“ _ Off _ ?” Bucky asks. 

Something about his tone sets off alarms in Tony’s head. Some might call him socially inept, but Tony has always felt like he’s ultra-sensitive to the emotions of the people around him, their tones and body language. When he looks at Barnes, he finds the man staring at some point above the television screen, his lips pressed into a thin, anxious line. 

“It’s either off or we’re watching the next two hours of  _ this _ .” 

“I mean—” Bucky cuts himself off. 

Tony waits. The room is silent except for Mia and Vincent who have won the trophy and are now celebrating in a similar manner. 

“I need noise to sleep,” Bucky finishes. “Otherwise I have these—the doctor calls them night terrors. If we had more than just the throwaway phones, I could play music on mine.” 

But they don’t. The knowledge hangs between them. 

Tony is torn between sympathy for Bucky’s situation and the horrifying hilarity of his own. His brain turns the situation over in his mind, searching for solutions. He doesn’t have much stock that the teenager at the front desk will be helpful, and it wouldn’t be responsible to go to him anyway—the last thing they need when they’re in-hiding is to attract attention to themselves. 

“I’ll just stay awake,” Bucky says gruffly after the long pause. “Wouldn’t be the first time. I don’t want to hurt—anyone.” 

_ You _ , Tony can translate.  _ I don’t want to hurt you _ . The barely perceptible pause before Barnes finishes his sentence has Tony’s heart pounding, though for what reason, he isn’t sure. One look at Barnes’s exhausted face and Tony’s mouth works without any forethought. 

“Look, we’ll keep it on and just turn the volume down. Only as low as you’re comfortable with.” 

The ex-assassin looks at him with an uncharacteristically vulnerable expression. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that beneath all the leather and clever knife tricks, Barnes is just a traumatized young man. It’s clear that he feels most comfortable in combat situations, blending seamlessly into the team when in the field but lingering awkwardly in the background during recreational team-building activities in the Tower. This—being stuck in a hotel room with Tony—must be a nightmare for him. 

“Thank you,” says Bucky roughly. He turns away, clearing his throat while he stuffs his dirty clothes into his bag. 

Feeling exhaustion creep in himself, Tony disappears into the bathroom to wash his face and make use of any complimentary toothpaste. It gives him a few precious moments away from the soldier, too. While he brushes his teeth, he stares at his reflection in the mirror still clinging with fog from Barnes’s shower. Jesus, Tony looks old. There’s no serum that will keep  _ him  _ young and healthy. He’s definitely not what he once was—and he’s becoming more aware of the fact every day. 

Barnes would be mad to see anything in him besides a playboy has-been and a pocketbook.

Tony spits into the sink. “Quit with the histrionics, Stark,” he mutters to himself. 

When he comes out of the bathroom, the lights are turned off. Though the volume is low, the television plays on casting lurid flickering shadows across the room. Barnes is under the blankets, shifted over towards one side of the bed as far as possible. They hadn’t explicitly stated where they would be sleeping, but it’s made obvious now. 

“I figured it was large enough to share. I couldn’t think of a way to ask for two beds when it looked like I was checking in alone,” Bucky says. The TV flares bright and lights Barnes’s face, the hollow of his cheeks beneath his cheekbones, the sharp line of his jaw, the eyes so pale. Tony will spend the night in the man’s bed—and  _ not  _ fuck him. His thirty-year-old self would never believe it. 

“I’m going to put my cold feet on you in the night, just a warning,” Tony says while slipping beneath the blankets on his side of the bed. 

“The hell you are,” Bucky answers, mouth twitching in the ghost of a smile. The smile is chased away by something Tony can’t name. Barnes stares up at the ceiling and then lets his eyes fall shut, murmuring, “Thank you.” 

_ For what _ , Tony wants to ask, but he doesn’t. 

Then they are in silence—except for the television. Barnes has it low, admittedly, but there’s nothing save muting it that could disguise the noises for what they are. Tony’s eyes flicker to the screen against their will and he sees that Marcellus and Butch have encountered trouble of a delightful sort. The use of ball gags is particularly on point, and the  _ sounds _ : masculine groans and gasps, the thud of skin on skin. 

Tony swallows and turns his eyes back to the ceiling, determined not to look again. 

The sounds though. They have him wondering when the last time he got laid was, and it’s been so long that he can’t even recall the specific time. He becomes hyper-aware of Barnes next to him, both of them flat on their backs and still as statues, though even with the foot of space between them he swears he can feel the heat Barnes’s body throws off. 

“You okay?” 

Tony nearly jerks out of his skin. His mouth is dry no matter how much he swallows. “Yeah, peachy, why?”

“You keep moving around.”

“Well, it’s not exactly the luxury bed I’m used to,” says Tony. He hopes Barnes can’t see through the excuse. He hopes that the thick comforter masks any unseemly bulge near his crotch. 

All Barnes gives is a low, “Yeah.” 

But Tony isn’t the only one who can’t seem to get comfortable. The more time that passes, the more Barnes begins to shift restlessly. He exhales markedly in a way that mirrors irritation and sets Tony on edge. If Tony’s eyes were glued to the screen, he might have suspected that Barnes was turning up the volume because the noises seem to grow louder. 

Just audible is the corny dialogue that wouldn’t turn Tony on in any other situation:  _ Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, you’re so fucking tight around my cock, I’m going to stuff you full with my cum and make your boss lick it out of you. Yeah, you like that? _

There’s no avoiding it now. Tony is hard. The visual and auditory stimulation alone could have done it, but laying next to Barnes has provided various fodder for his overactive imagination as well. Now he wonders how he will make it to the bathroom without Barnes seeing the tent in his pajama pants. Surely the soldier would know what he was doing in there, anyway—but who cares? Tony is human. Arousal is human. Barnes doesn’t need to know that it’s anything other than the gangbang on television that’s making him hot under the collar. 

Tony has nearly convinced himself to get up and rub one out in the bathroom when Barnes shifts, lifting one leg until his knee is pointed at the ceiling, sole flat on the bed. It creates a nice tent in the fabric, one that is very  _ convenient _ . Tony himself used the same method to hide boners from Rhodey back in their shared dorm room days at MIT. 

_ Barnes is hard.  _

“Not exactly a lullaby, is it?” Tony mutters. 

“What the hell are they  _ doing _ , killing each other?” Bucky asks, throwing one arm over his eyes. 

“In the best way, it sounds like.” 

Barnes  _ laughs _ . The sound is deep and warm and sets of sparklers in Tony’s gut until Tony himself is grinning up at the ceiling. It’s a good laugh. It has health benefits, Tony thinks. “How much longer until it’s over?” 

“I’d say an hour and a half, give or take.” 

“Jesus,” Bucky sighs. “How—” 

When Barnes doesn’t finish his sentence, Tony can’t help but press him: “How what?” 

“How the hell am I supposed to get any sleep like... _ this _ ?” With the hand across his eyes, he gestures down towards the tent his leg has made in the blanket. 

“In my day,” says Tony. “Which, holy fuck, I just realized is actually many, many years  _ after  _ your day, we would just—take matters into our own hands.” 

“I’m familiar with the concept,” Barnes says dryly. Which—yeah, Tony’s going to analyze that sentence later, when he can thoroughly enjoy it. For a long time, neither of them speak. Tony begins to wonder if Barnes hasn’t fallen asleep despite his earlier words. When he glances over, the man is still, chest rising and falling with even breaths, arm over his eyes and full mouth parted just a little. 

Looking at him—the stubble on his chin and jaw, the full lips—does nothing for Tony’s situation down south. Just as he is about to turn away, the blankets shift.  _ Just making himself comfortable _ , Tony thinks. But then he watches as the one arm that Barnes has kept tucked beneath the blankets drifts down, down. So far down that if Tony didn’t know any better, he might think that—

Barnes makes a soft sound, nearly swallowed by the television. His mouth parts further, giving Tony a flash of white teeth. It all goes straight to Tony’s cock. 

Barnes is twelve inches away and _ touching his own cock.  _

“Fuck,” Tony breathes. 

Barnes’s arm jerks away from his face, eyes wide when they meet Tony’s own. The paler man flushes, mouth open and trying to form words though no sounds come out. 

“Sorry,” Bucky grits out at last. “I don’t know what—I’m just going to go—“

“No,” says Tony far too loudly if the widening of Bucky’s eyes says anything. He works to lower the volume of his voice, to swallow down the elephant-sized butterflies that are just beyond his throat. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. You can do—whatever you need to.”

“What,” Bucky breathes. “Right here?” 

“Not a big deal,” Tony reaffirms, though in his imagination it is a  _ very  _ big deal. A deal he wouldn’t mind getting his hands and mouth on. 

Bucky lets out a long breath. He props himself up on his elbows until he’s looking down at Tony in a way that makes Tony want to reach out and roll the man on top of him properly. He’s so busy watching the shadows deepen in the hollows of Bucky’s face as the TV flickers that he misses entirely what the man says. 

“Run that by me again?” 

A flush colors the highest part of the other man’s cheeks. Whether it’s arousal from the porno or embarrassment from being caught with his hand on his junk just a moment before, Tony couldn’t say. “I mean—you too, right? It’d be weird if I was—if it was just me.” 

_ Yeah _ , Tony thinks, half hysterical. That’s  _ what would make this entire situation weird _ . Not Bucky Barnes asking him to jerk off beside him so that he doesn’t feel obscene alone. The entire night seems like a plot out of a bad porno (the titles of which Tony doesn’t even want to imagine). But Barnes could ask for even more obscene things from him than this, and Tony thinks that he would do them. Gladly. 

“Sure,” Tony says after a long pause. “I mean—wouldn’t want to make it  _ weird _ . Should we just, stay under the covers?” 

“Way too hot for that,” Bucky says. “I run hot, though. Stay under if you like.” 

And with that, Barnes thrusts the blankets off of his half of the bed, leaving them crumpled between them like a makeshift division, a line in the sand that shall not be crossed even though, Jesus, just the sight of the soldier tempts Tony. Barnes isn’t even naked, not even scantily clad—he’s wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt—but the bulge of his erection turns it into one of the most arousing sights Tony has ever seen. 

Never one to have been shy, Tony folds back his half of the blankets too. The room is cool against his feverish skin. When he glances over, he sees that Barnes is giving him a similar perusing stare, one that makes Tony all the more aware of how much softer Tony is, less muscle these days. But now isn’t the time for that. In the morning, Tony can throw himself a pity party over his every last wrinkle and gray hair; right now, he doesn’t want to spend a single more moment stuck in his own head. 

Reaching over to the nightstand, Bucky grabs the remote and turns the television volume up just enough that they no longer have to strain to hear it. He lets the remote fall to the bed between them and then he is reaching one broad hand down and palming his own cock through the cotton fabric. The sight alone has Tony’s breath stuttering. 

_ We’re really doing this _ , he thinks.  _ This will give me enough material in my spank bank to last me the rest of my life.  _

Bucky shifts his hips upward and then tugs down his pants far enough for his cock to spring free, and it’s glorious. Pixels disappear, and they had not done Barnes justice: he is long and uncut, a pleasing thickness, and flushed a ruddy pink. One of Barnes’s hands wraps around the base of it and the other tugs up his t-shirt baring an obscene amount of abs pale enough to have been carved from marble. 

Tony’s own need is so painful that he doesn’t hesitate to follow suit. His own cock is nothing to be ashamed of, cut though he is. Once he is bare, Tony hears a sharp inhalation from Barnes beside him, though when he glances over, the man’s gray eyes are focused on the television. Right—Tony should probably do the same if he wants to keep up the illusion that the only thing getting his dick hard is the obscene video. 

But it’s hard (pun intended) when Barnes begins to jerk himself off at a painfully slow rate, the brighter pink head of his cock appearing and disappearing beneath the foreskin. He’s art, Tony thinks, cock bobbing where it stands untouched. It’s official that Bucky is the most beautiful, provocative sight he’s ever seen, and with Tony’s eidetic memory, he commits the sight to immortal memory. 

He is stunned when Bucky’s jaw clenches, his head pressing back into the pillow and a throaty groan breaking free as he cums after  _ less than a dozen thrusts _ into his own fist. Pale ropes of cum splatter against his abs while his face contorts in pleasure so keen it looks painful, one hand fisting the bedsheets with frightening force. Barnes makes another, breathier sound as he works himself through his orgasm, jerking his cock until he hisses with sensitivity and pulls his hand away. 

Panting, Barnes makes eye contact with Tony, who only lifts his brows. 

“Don’t say a word,” the soldier says, eyes narrowed though his mouth is twitching upwards. 

“I know a guy who can help with that—” 

“Don’t need any help.” 

“—lots of men have the same problem, you know, premature—”

“I’m  _ sensitive _ , okay?” 

“I’ll bet you are,” Tony says, far breathier than he intended. The mood in the room has changed, lightened, but one thing hasn’t—Tony is hard, literally dripping (a detail he hopes Barnes misses in the lowlight of the room). Just a foot away lays the man who has played a frighteningly large role in Tony’s fantasies over the last six months, and he looks like a goddamn wet dream. 

Reaching down, he wraps his fingers around his cock and swallows a sound at the instant relief. It’s been too long since he’s rubbed one out, too much time spent preparing for this mission all for it to go south. He can’t blame Barnes for cumming quickly, not when Tony feels as if he could do the same himself (and without any of the excuses, too). 

Bucky makes a noise. When Tony glances over, he finds those gray eyes wide and focused on where Tony fists his cock. His expression is almost comical, mouth parted as if in surprise, brows raised. That full mouth shuts and Bucky swallows, honest to god  _ swallows  _ as if the sight of Tony jerking off has made his mouth dry. 

And maybe it has, Tony thinks with growing incredulity, because Bucky’s cock seems distinctly harder now than it had been just a moment ago. It’s confirmed when the man reaches down and wraps his slick hand around his cock again, giving it a tentative stroke. 

“Jesus, you can go again? It hasn’t even been five minutes,” Tony says, mouth wandering away without the permission of his brain. “That’s definitely not a trick I can do anymore. Couldn’t even do it fifteen years ago, at that—” 

“Is it okay?” Bucky asks, brows furrowed. “Should I stop? I mean—” 

“Not on my account,” Tony breathes. “ _ Fuck _ , look at you.” 

“ _ Me _ ? What about me?”

Tony grits his teeth. He’s always been a talker and during sex is no exception. The closer he gets towards that orgasmic precipice, the more words drip from his mouth, spilling things that he never would have said otherwise. “Nothing,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said that.” 

“ _ Why’d _ you say it, though?” 

“Don’t worry about it—” 

“You, you’re watching me,” Bucky says, chest heaving. “You  _ like  _ watching me?” 

“Who wouldn’t?” Tony says. “You were watching me too, remember?” 

“Yeah, well,” Bucky laughs. “ _ Who wouldn’t? _ ” 

_ That _ . Tony is going to take  _ that  _ home with him. He’ll take it down to the lab and spend hours pondering it, because there’s no way Bucky could have missed the context behind Tony’s words, but there’s also no way that Bucky could have meant the same. There’s no more pretense, at least, neither of them pretending to be watching the bad porno on the television. Both of their heads are turned shamelessly watching as the other strips their cock. 

When Bucky reaches up with his free hand and drags the palm over the wet, sensitive head of his cock, whining in the back of his throat at the sensitivity—well, there’s nothing in the world that could keep Tony from cumming. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he hisses, twisting his fist at the top of his strokes as his balls draw up. His eyes shut as he cums, but behind his eyelids he still sees Bucky, cock in hand, abs still wet with his own ejaculate. Then he can think of or see nothing else, everything narrowed down to his cock as it spills over his fist. 

Beside him, Bucky makes a noise and Tony has just enough sense left to let his eyes crack open to watch the other man cum again, seed dripping down his pale fist in a less explosive though no less artful orgasm, body arched in the most sensual bow Tony’s ever seen. 

It’s good enough, he thinks.  _ More  _ than good enough. If this is all he ever gets of Bucky, of  _ Barnes _ , then he could satisfy himself with that. It’s a hell of a lot more than he ever thought he would get. Tony is very good at making do with what he is given. 

They pant in silence, breaths growing longer as their sweat cools. On the television,  _ Pulp Friction _ ends and the television goes dark, asking if Barnes would like to rewatch the movie (apparently $19.99 is worth an unlimited number of viewings of such a cinematic masterpiece). Barnes is the first to move, reaching for the remote to turn the channel—infomercials, Jesus—and then to disappear into the bathroom. 

Tony sheds his shirt and uses it to wipe the cum off his hand and from where it pools around his soft cock. 

Barnes spends so long in the bathroom doing God-knows-what that Tony is asleep by the time he exits, and when he next wakes, it’s to Barnes standing over him, the disposable cell phone in his hand, face as stoic and somber as ever as he informs Tony that they have two hours to get to their rendezvous point with Steve and the others. 

As they pack the car, Barnes can barely look him in the eye. It stings more than he thought it would. 

_ Make do, _ he thinks to himself as he slips into the passenger seat. And if his chest aches, it doesn’t matter. If he feels Barnes’s coldness keenly enough that it has him reaching out to close the AC vents on the car’s dashboard, that’s Tony’s business. If he already misses Barnes—the Barnes that had murmured the softest, saddest  _ thank you _ , that had laughed beside him, given him those bedroom eyes and looked at Tony like he was worth seeing—well, who the hell wouldn’t?


End file.
